


Pride and Power

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Knights of Walpurgis, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Seduction, Spying, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-13 23:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16481780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry, stuck in the past and asked by Dumbledore to infiltrate the ranks of Riddle’s proto-Death Eaters, is also being courted by Riddle himself, and by the Aurors, and by a couple of people who might not have anything to do with them. Harry struggles to hold onto his sense of himself and reality in the midst of all this. Sequel to “Earning His Notice.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Make sure that you read “Earning His Notice” first, or you won’t have much idea what’s going on. This is the first part of one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics—stories I’m posting between Halloween and December 21st. This will have three parts, to be posted today, tomorrow, and Friday.

****“I want you to at least consider the Aurors.”

Harry felt the sharp ripple of distaste travel up his back as he realized that Riddle was staring at him again. He shook his head and aimed a curse that cleaved the dummy they were facing in half. This manor house that Riddle kept inviting him to had so many dueling rooms that it was never the same one twice. “Why? I’m happy working in Ophelia’s shop. And I know that you must have a few people inside the Auror trainee classes already.”

“Yes. But none with as much interest from the Ministry itself as you’ve generated.”

“It’s mistaken interest. It’ll wear off in a little while.”

“Do you say that about _anyone_ who has an interest in you?”

“When it’s based solely on my magical power.” Harry gave Riddle a nasty smile and purposely focused on the next dummy marching into place, ignoring the distracting flash of both their reflections in the mirror off to the side. Harry had no idea why _that_ was there. Some duelists liked to pose before they began fighting, he supposed.

“I wonder.”

That was all the warning Harry had before the floor abruptly opened in several places and more dummies came whipping out. They were made of iron instead of the cloth and straw Harry had battled so far. They were also twice the size. The holes closed behind them, and with a clanking and robotic motion, they turned to focus on Harry.

Harry’s eyes narrowed. Then he waved his wand at the floor, casting a nonverbal Transfiguration that he’d used a few times in Hogwarts to stop Slytherins from bullying younger Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs.

The floor promptly turned to ice. The dummies took one step forwards, and began to fall and slip and slide.

Harry turned, making sure from the corner of one eye that Riddle was standing back and watching instead of joining the battle, and yelled, “ _Confringo_!”

The mirror shattered into a series of flying pieces. Harry used another spell to grab control of them from the air, and then he turned and sent them flying towards the iron dummies, which were still struggling to get back to their feet.

The pieces of glass shattered smaller and smaller as Harry concentrated on them, and then he Transfigured them into heavy stones, which he dumped on the ice around the dummies. After a bit of sliding, the stones stayed in place—but the dummies were also almost all the way back to their feet, using their blunt “hands” to keep themselves from slipping again.

That was okay. Harry only intended to use the stones as anchors, not weapons.

“ _Cavea lucis_!” he cried.

His wand flew, tracing the patterns he wanted among the stones, and lines of light sprang up between them, draping in a cage over the top of the stones that looked a lot like a tent. It also looked fragile. But when the first dummy pressed against it, the cage only bent so far before it sprang back, glowing furiously. Harry chuckled a little as he watched the six dummies doing their best to get out of the cages. They wouldn’t manage it.

“Beyond impressive.”

Riddle’s voice was right next to him. Harry flinched, unable to help it, and stumbled back a step. Riddle’s hand steadied him before he could step onto the part of the floor he’d Transfigured into ice.

“Er,” Harry said. He shook his head to get a ringing out of his ears. Then again, it was hard for his head _not_ to ring when Riddle was staring at him like that.

“You battled them exactly right,” Riddle said, over the crunching sound of the iron dummies trying to walk around on the ice and the sizzling sound as their hands struck the cage of light. He didn’t appear interested in releasing Harry’s shoulder, even when Harry shrugged at him. “But how did you know the right tactics?”

“It seemed obvious.”

“Yet none of my followers managed the right tactics in such a small amount of time.”

“Well, I mean—iron would be hard to cut. And I know that dummies like these don’t stop if you only cut off part of them, and smashing them down all the way would be even harder. And I can’t conjure fire hot enough to melt iron.”

“All of that,” Riddle said softly, “reasoned out within a few seconds. And you slowed them down, as well, using their weight, which is usually a deadly weapon, against them.” His hand tightened, and he stepped towards Harry, tracing his fingers down behind Harry’s ear, as he was fond of doing. It hadn’t stopped being effective. Harry shivered and then tore himself away.

“Do you not see how remarkable you are? How people are interested in you for more than your sheer power?”

Harry took a deep breath and shook his head. “Listen, Riddle, you didn’t know anything about the kind of dueling or thinking I can do until after my fight with Malfoy. No, it’s power that attracts them.” He turned away, disquieted. The burn in Riddle’s eyes became more ravenous all the time.

Harry had accepted that he thought Riddle, in this state that was so much like the diary shade, was handsome. It was stupid for him to feel that way, but it was his own _private_ stupidity. And he knew, from rumors that had swirled around Hogwarts in the seventh year he’d attended in this time, that Riddle was certainly not above using his beauty to seduce and fill his bed, or his pockets, or his ranks, or all three.

Riddle had _no_ right to be looking at him like that, as if _Harry_ was attractive to him. Harry knew he was still skinnier and shorter than normal, even in 1946, and his hair was a mess. Riddle _couldn’t_ be interested in sleeping with him. No.

“There may be one more call from the Aurors.”

Harry felt his shoulders relax. “Just one? Then it’ll be easier for me to go back to my actual _job_.” That job, working at Ophelia’s apothecary shop, got harder when Aurors wanted to drop in for a “cup of tea and a chat.”

“It may be that they’ll have more information about you.”

Harry felt a prickling speed up and down his spine that had nothing to do with the pleasure Riddle often stirred in him. He glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “What do you mean?” The first, stupid suspicion that had occurred to him was that the Aurors now knew he was a time traveler, which would mess _everything_ up.

“It may be,” Riddle said, leaning his shoulder on the wall and appreciating Harry with his eyes, “that some of them will learn about the results of the duels we’ve been staging here.”

“You _wanker_. What—you can’t _force_ me into being an Auror!”

Riddle only smiled, although those same rumors at Hogwarts said that he’d never forgive even one of his followers who talked to him like that. “Not force. I would never be that crass. But to have someone else make you an offer you can’t refuse? Why not, Harry?” His voice lingered on Harry’s name, caressing it.

“I don’t want to be an Auror!” And it was true. Harry might have wanted to if he was still in his own time, but he’d never got the chance to enter training there. And this time, when it was still reeling from the war with Grindelwald and people acted like raw power and pure blood were all that mattered, was even less attractive.

“It would help me.”

“I don’t care enough about your cause to sacrifice my time and freedom for it.”

Riddle only smiled at him again. “You’re more impressive than you know, Harry,” he said, moving away from the wall and past Harry. Harry watched his hands, and he would have sworn that Riddle never reached towards him, and especially he would have sworn that Riddle didn’t touch him. Yet a fleeting warm sensation brushed his skin anyway.

“Consider carefully.”

_The only thing I’m considering right now is all the reasons I can’t bury a knife in your back, you sadistic prick._

*

“I would like you to join the Aurors, Harry.”

Harry set down the cup hard enough to earn a “tsk” from Albus. But he didn’t care about that right now. “ _What_? Why?”

“Because it would serve us well to have you seem to go along with Riddle’s plans for the moment. And it would serve us well to have a spy in the Aurors.” Albus settled on the small chair in the back of Ophelia’s shop with a sigh. “You know that the Aurors were ineffective against Grindelwald’s forces?”

“Well, yes. But I also thought they didn’t really fight them?”

“Some of the British Aurors went to join with Continental forces who did. And they came back not energetic or respectful or thoughtful, but terrified. The Ministry is already regressing, Harry. I can see it. They’ve convinced themselves that if they do nothing to attract the attention of another Dark Lord, another one will never arise.”

Harry groaned and buried his head in his hands. He _knew_ exactly what kind of stupid bloody thinking that was, and he could see how it pointed the way for a bunch of things. The way Fudge had acted, denying Voldemort’s return. The way that Aurors had been authorized to use the Unforgivables, because Merlin forbid that they learn some other spells or _effective_ ways to fight Dark wizards.

“I’ve changed the timeline so much already,” he muttered to himself.

“I’m afraid that you must change it more.” Albus reached out and squeezed his hand. “I would not ask this of you if I did not think it the very best position you could be in to serve our cause as well as seeming to serve Riddle’s, Harry. He will trust you more when you seem to be agreeing with him against your own will. He will assume you are more prideful and ambitious than you actually are, and that is also an advantage.”

“And I’ll learn the kinds of tactics that might help me take the Death Eaters down.”

“There is that. I am sorry to ask it of you.”

“That never stopped you from asking it anyway.”

Albus winced a little, but he nodded. “That also is true. But at the same time, I can’t force you. I only ask that you consider it might be the best way forwards, not just the path of least resistance.”

Harry considered it. He’d hidden for so long, but he’d already thrown that away. And Albus had managed to point out things about the possible changes to the timeline that Harry hadn’t considered, like that history probably wasn’t that fragile.

And Harry had always intended to act to change the timeline _anyway_. He just hadn’t thought it would be this soon or this big.

“All right, sir,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“Please call me Albus, Harry. I’ve told you that before. I’m no longer your Headmaster.”

“But you are my general. My leader.”

Albus looked honestly flustered for a second. Then he toasted Harry with his teacup. “That has a much more pleasant ring to it.”

*

“My Aurors have been telling me tales about you, Mr. Keller. Frankly, I’m not convinced.”

Harry just nodded, a little relieved for the sight of someone who treated him _normally_ , not like he was bloody special just because he was more powerful than some people. Head Auror Jessica Greengrass studied him with deep-set grey eyes and then moved over to the other side of the dueling room. It reminded Harry of nothing so much as a walled and roofed version of the grounds at his Muggle primary school. The “floor” was dirt and stone. The walls had few objects on them: a few rings, a few chains, a few weapons. Harry understood the purpose even without Greengrass explaining it to him. There were few places to hide here and few weapons to wield. He would be judged on spells alone.

And if he just _happened_ to come up weak or lacking in Greengrass’s eyes, that wouldn’t be his fault, would it? It would be proof that he wasn’t as special as Riddle and Albus thought.

“You understand dueling stances, Mr. Keller?”

“Not well, Auror Greengrass. I’m Muggleborn.”

She squinted at him. “Funny. For a moment I thought there was something familiar about your face and hair.”

Harry shrugged, unbothered. A few of the pure-bloods at Hogwarts had said the same thing to him. “I don’t know a lot about my father’s family, Auror Greengrass. But as far as I know, I’m purely Muggleborn.”

She accepted that, and walked over to the other side of the dueling room, turning around to face him. “Show me what you can do, Keller. The duel is to first incapacitation. Bow.”

Harry bowed, all right, but he also kept his eyes on Greengrass. He wasn’t surprised when she hurled a jinx at him from the middle of her bow. Harry ducked it, rolled, and came up on the other side of the room, casting the Whirlwind Charm.

Dust and small stones immediately blew up between them. Greengrass let out a sound that might have been a cough of surprise. Harry tensed and jumped to the side, and the Stunner missed him.

He added another Whirlwind Charm, plus a Shield Charm to keep the dust from blowing into _his_ eyes, and muttered, “ _Saggita ignis._ ”

The air in front of him ignited, formed into an arrow, and flew through the winds at Auror Greengrass. Harry had chosen that particular spell because his charms couldn’t affect it. He put his back to the wall and waited for her response.

“ _Aguamenti! Motus_!”

Harry didn’t worry about the first one; it was just her way of putting the Fire Arrow out. But a second later, the floor under him started to shake. Harry jumped up, grabbed one of the chains dangling from the wall, and climbed partway up so that he could throw more curses at her.

Auror Greengrass dodged the first two, but that put her in the path of Harry’s third, a brilliant purple hex that he’d found in one of the library books at Hogwarts. It threw her off her feet and made her heart beat too fast at the same time. It didn’t last as long as a Stunner, but the initial shock was worse.

Harry held onto the chain, ignored the pain in his arms, and waited as she writhed on the floor for a second. Then she threw a nonverbal Body-Bind at him.

Harry let go, dropped, and leaped again, out of the way of the pit that had opened beneath him. He filled the air with smoke and wind, then hurled a Stunner.

Auror Greengrass lay still. Harry eyed her cautiously. Maybe she’d actually been Stunned, but maybe she wasn’t.

Sure enough, Auror Greengrass stood up a second later. Harry poised his wand and started a silent incantation for a mobile Shield Charm that he could float in front of her and get in the way of her spells.

“Enough, Keller!”

Harry ended his incantation, but still kept eyeing her. She’d said they’d duel to first incapacitation, and that hadn’t happened yet.

“I can see why so many of my colleagues want to admit you as a trainee. You have power, yes, Keller, but you have something rarer than that.” Auror Greengrass pointed her wand at him, which made Harry’s back tighten. “Instinct. The ability to think on your feet. The ability to move back and forth without thinking about it, even. I would say this was a draw, which is bloody impressive for someone of mine. You belong in the Aurors.”

_That was what you wanted,_ Harry reminded himself, around his sinking heart. _What Albus asked of you. And Riddle will be pleased, so you can keep acting as though you’re doing what he says._

He made the right noises, and ignored, as best he could, the way Greengrass squinted sideways at him and muttered a few times, “Damn familiar face, _damn_ familiar.”

*

“Do you doubt your prowess now, Keller?”

“You really wanted to say ‘ _Dare_ you doubt it now?’, right? I could hear that in your voice.”

Riddle laughed instead of getting angry with him. Harry swallowed his Firewhisky and leaned back in his chair. They were alone in yet another lavish dining room in yet another manor. Riddle either had more followers than Harry had thought, or his followers had more houses.

“I might say that. I might think it. You would ignore me and mock me for it, and that is as it should be.”

Harry just shook his head. “They must be really desperate for recruits if they took someone with a mediocre Hogwarts record and no known blood status.”

“Oh, yes, _about_ that.”

Harry straightened up slowly. Riddle had that grin on his face that Harry distrusted more than any other, the grin that said he was about to throw a curse in some form Harry couldn’t dodge. “What is it? _My lord._ ”

Even the sarcastic title didn’t make Riddle shy away from his terrible revelation. “You know that they need more Aurors because of the war with Grindelwald killing so many, but I would hardly say that makes them desperate. And, Harry.” He paused, then added, “Keller is inappropriate now.”

Harry narrowed his eyes and did his best not to show how much he was shaking by keeping still. “Yeah?”

“You should have claimed your blood status at once. A Potter half-blood? _Much_ more to the point than a Muggleborn with a random surname. Much more useful. Much more to my taste.”

He hissed that last word, with enough sibilants to make Harry want to hex him, and stood. Harry just sat in place as he moved around the table. It wasn’t like this was unusual. Riddle loved to come up to him like this.

But the focused look on his face, the burning in his eyes—yeah, that was new.

Harry doubted he could lie to Riddle well enough to fool him even with the brooch that protected him from Riddle’s Legilimency, so he just tilted his head at him and sighed. “How did you find out?”

“Well, your looks are similar enough, of course. And there was Tristan Potter abruptly packed off for a jaunt around the world when he was barely out of Hogwarts. Whether he fathered you in Britain and that was the cause of the scandal, or he fathered you on the Continent—did you think I would discriminate against you for being illegitimate?”

Harry shook his head. “I wasn’t sure. And claiming to be Muggleborn would be less shaming for a family like the Potters than claiming their name.” There. All truths, without being the ultimate truth.

“Mmm.” Riddle’s hand slid up his arm. “It’s going to change matters with my Knights, of course. They won’t be as quick to insult you as they were when they thought you Muggleborn.”

“Then do you want to tell them? Since you said one of the things you were looking forward to was seeing a mere Muggleborn put them in their places.”

“I want to tell them because I want to see the look in their eyes when they realized they underestimated you.”

“Okay.” Harry nodded without reacting to the way Riddle’s hand had traveled to his shoulder. “Then we can do that whenever you want.”

“I also heard about your duel with Auror Greengrass. I’m not sure more dueling practice would benefit you.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“At the moment? Be quiet.”

Harry opened his mouth indignantly and found it nearly full of Riddle’s tongue. He gasped and tried to lean further back in his chair, bringing up the legs to press against Riddle’s and get him to back off, but Riddle only tightened his hand in Harry’s hair and kissed him harder, pulling the chair back to the floor.

Harry was trembling with shock and adrenaline and the need to break free. Riddle was a bloody good kisser, not wet like Cho, not almost mashing Harry’s lips flat like the one kiss he’d had at Hogwarts in this time. Warmth spread through his body and he went limp, leaning back, letting Riddle do—

_No._

Harry coiled up his legs in the limited space between them and kicked Riddle in the chest. It wasn’t a great kick, considering the angle and how bloody stupidly _hard_ he was, but he did it, and broke the kiss. Riddle staggered back, his eyes as wide as full moons.

Harry stood and got behind the chair to hide as much of his erection as he could. But Riddle’s knowing smile said he couldn’t hide his flushed cheeks, or the way his hands trembled when he gripped the chair back.

_You have no reason to allow this. It doesn’t matter how handsome you find him. Dumbledore didn’t ask this of you._

Harry breathed out harshly and found it was a little better when the breath took care of the taste of Riddle on his lips. “No.”

“Why not? You were enjoying it.”

“You keep telling me that I’m the closest to an equal you’ll allow yourself. How in the world would that survive becoming your _plaything_?”

Riddle studied him for a second with a blank face. Harry didn’t believe it would put him off if he was determined to fuck Harry, but at least maybe it would make him think how this would appear to his followers.

Once again, Riddle surprised Harry. “I never intended for you to be my plaything.”

Harry blinked, then snapped, “Maybe you wouldn’t _intend_ for it to happen. But it would. You would start treating me as lesser than you because of the way you made me look or something stupid like that.”

“Why do you believe that?”

“Because you can’t _love_ people, Riddle! And I only want to have sex with someone I’m in love with. So there,” Harry added triumphantly. He knew there was no way around that barrier for Riddle. He couldn’t fake love, and he wouldn’t try. He would think it was beneath him.

Riddle narrowed his eyes as if Harry had shown him a complex Arithmancy equation. “You seem very sure you would never sleep with me.”

“I just told you why!”

“And I think,” Riddle went on in a musing tone, “that you can’t have had sex with very many people, if you have that strong a rule. There aren’t that many men here who would sleep with a Muggleborn—not ones worth having.”

“I don’t share your standards of worth! And I like women! And stop assuming things about me, Riddle!”

A strange smile had taken the place of that narrow-eyed stare. “You are a virgin, then. There were times I nearly fooled myself into not thinking it, but of course I should have known.” Riddle was looking at him with something Harry could only describe as starvation. “Well, I’ll entice you into surrendering. Then you can change your mind about your standard without pouting that I forced you to change it.”

Harry stood up. His legs were still shaky, and he hated that, but he also knew that simply sitting here to try and prove that he was stronger than Riddle would be a bloody stupid thing to do. “We’ve wandered a long way away from the original subject. I suppose you’ll reveal me to your Knights as a half-blood. And then what?”

“Then you’ll duel one of them.”

Riddle seemed to have let the subject of kissing him go, even if he did still stare at Harry with those disturbing eyes. Harry wanted to roll his own eyes at himself. He should have known, of course. Since when did Riddle genuinely want to sleep with him? Or seduce him? Harry was still beneath him, a Hufflepuff and illegitimate and all that.

“All right. When is this meeting going to take place?”

“At six tomorrow evening.”

Harry grimaced. That meant he would be going right from his first, no doubt intense day of Auror training to the tender non-existent mercies of a Death Eater gathering. But Riddle would get suspicious if he protested too much, so he just exhaled. “Fine.”

Riddle watched him as he walked towards the door. Harry scolded himself inside his head all the way. Of course Riddle was playing games. It was Harry’s fault for taking him seriously for even a moment. He knew who Riddle was going to become as well as who he was now. Riddle didn’t have the patience to seduce someone who truly rejected him. He didn’t mean to let Harry stand at his side. He—

A hand on his back, a mouth on his mouth. Harry arched, not sure if he was trying to throw Riddle off or not, as a tongue swept over his teeth and Riddle’s other hand dropped to squeeze between his legs.

Riddle was the one who stepped back this time, his smile small and pleased. “Remember that when you think that I don’t care, Harry Potter,” he whispered, and vanished down a dark corridor with almost-mirrored walls that Harry had seen him walk out of when he made his way into the dining room.

Harry stared after him, mouth pressed, cock hard, wondering.


	2. Part Two

“This is Harry Potter. Illegitimate son of Tristan Potter. He’s here to join our ranks.”

Harry stepped out silently from behind Riddle’s black throne (of course it was a black throne). They were in yet another manor house or maybe another section of the one where he and Riddle had had dinner last night, because the walls and the throne and the dais the throne was on all gleamed with the same sort of black, mirrored stone that the corridor Riddle had walked down last night had. The Knights of Walpurgis stood in front of him and stared.

None of them wore masks. Harry saw Abraxas, and the large hulking form of Tacitus Avery, and a man whose face he didn’t know but who was a Black by his looks, and a few other upper-year Slytherins he’d known from his time at Hogwarts. They did all wear black robes with green along the edges, and a snake reared next to a tree on badges or bracelets or torques they wore.

Harry frowned and looked more closely at that emblem. The tree looked like it had—apples—on it. Tom Riddle had adopted a symbol as ordinary as an apple tree at one point?

Before he could ask about it, Abraxas said loudly, “I thought his name was Harry Keller.”

“That’s what he wanted various parties to think.” Riddled sounded bored as he lounged on his throne. Then he crooked a finger and hissed softly under his breath. “ _Come to me_.”

Harry fought not to do anything but jump, as if totally surprised, when a grey snake with shifting black dapples on its back slid out from beneath the throne and coiled up next to Riddle. At least it didn’t seem to be Nagini; Harry didn’t remember her ever being this color. The snake swayed its head back and forth for a second, then focused on Harry. “ _Who is this man_?”

“ _New prey._ ”

Harry clenched his jaw and said nothing, because rebelling against Riddle for a lark wasn’t worth showing that he understood Parseltongue. He only turned away as if in thought and considered Abraxas. “Believe me, if it was up to me, I’d still be known as Harry Keller.”

“So you aren’t going to reveal it publically?” For some reason, Abraxas was looking at Riddle. Maybe he had made some motion Harry had missed.

“No, why should I?” Harry shrugged, and thought he pulled it off as realistically as he could given the company and the context. “The Potter family wouldn’t acknowledge me anyway. It’s not like I can get anything out of it.”

“You can get the respect of pure-bloods!”

“But _why_? It’s not like my father would have acknowledged me, either, and I’m not a child of his marriage.”

The pure-bloods in the room only continued to stare at him. Then Riddle laughed quietly. Harry glanced over his shoulder to see Riddle’s eyes gleaming as his hand stroked the snake’s scales.

“You truly haven’t grown up with pure-blood notions at all, no matter your paternal family,” Riddle murmured. “You may have inherited the magical strengths or other kinds that run in the Potter bloodline. You have a chance to rise above your origins. You belong in the magical world in a way that Muggleborns never will.”

Riddle’s eyes were flashing as he looked at his followers, and abruptly Harry understood. The position that Harry was pretending to be in was the exact one that Riddle _had_ been in: despised at first, thought to be Muggleborn, and then accepted and even revered after the fact for the kinds of magical talents that _did_ run in Slytherin blood. No wonder he’d been even more eager to introduce Harry to the Knights of Walpurgis after “finding out” that he was Tristan Potter’s son.

Except Harry wouldn’t be able to demonstrate any special talents like Parseltongue. He hoped that Riddle wouldn’t be too disappointed.

_But he’ll just have to live with it if he is, won’t he, Harry?_

Harry faced Avery, who was speaking now, his brows drawn down in a fierce scowl. He’d already reminded Harry of a more intelligent version of Crabbe and Goyle. “But you don’t resent your family, do you, Potter?”

Harry shook his head.

“Then why is he joining us?” Avery turned to face Riddle, his shoulder pointing towards Harry as if to dismiss him completely. “What can he _offer_ us, if he doesn’t even have an in with his ancestors?”

Silence from Riddle. Harry glanced over his shoulder, once again wondering if he had missed some sort of secret signal.

But Riddle had evidently been waiting for him to look, because he grinned, his teeth seeming to shine unnaturally in the dark room. “Show them what you have to offer us, Harry.”

Harry grimaced, but drew his wand. This was the only way to keep Riddle interested in having Harry in his group. All the sexual games he played or pretended to play wouldn’t let Harry spy on the workings of the proto-Death Eaters from within.

Avery guffawed and took out his own wand. “Do you really think you’re going to win, Potter? Everyone knows that you were pants at Defense in school.”

A few of the Knights blinked, as if reconsidering what else Harry might have lied about if his name had been part of that. Harry sighed—he hated when his enemies stopped underestimating him—but he just sneered at Avery. “Are we dueling or not, Tacky?”

The nickname, which Harry had heard a few Slytherins use once outside the common room when they were taunting the git, brought Avery dashing forwards with a roar. Harry danced back and aimed his wand at Avery’s feet. He cast the incantation silently, since there was a possibility that Avery would avoid it if he spoke aloud.

The floor became a writhing mess of vipers. Avery backed up, his face gone ashen. Another bit of gossip that had made its way to Harry’s ears was Avery’s fear of venomous snakes.

Riddle’s laughter was loud and sudden behind him. Harry refused to be distracted, simply watching as Avery flattened himself against the wall, breathing hard. Harry raised his eyebrows. “That’s _it_ for this duel?”

“G-get rid of the snakes. Please, Potter.”

It was true that he wouldn’t accomplish any of the goals that Riddle or Albus wanted him to by simply paralyzing his opponent with fear. Harry shrugged and slid the snakes across the floor with another spell, caging them in a wire enclosure. He wasn’t going to get rid of them when they might still be useful.

Avery took a moment to recover his breath, and then cast the Cruciatus Curse at Harry. Harry dodged it and returned fire with a hex that rammed into Avery’s shoulder but apparently did no damage. Avery laughed at him, showing teeth that seemed to have the same unnatural glow as Riddle’s.

“Suppose your reputation has been exaggerated, right?”

 _Three, two, one,_ Harry counted in his head, and Avery screamed and clutched at his wand arm as the hex took effect, making all his muscles clamp and burn at once as if he’d gripped a live wire. Harry Summoned Avery’s wand while he was distracted and then dashed around Avery, conjuring a knife.

When the point of the blade touched Avery’s throat, he went very still.

“No, but I think yours has been,” Harry whispered into Avery’s ear. “Do you yield?”

Avery couldn’t nod and didn’t seem to want to whisper because of the knife at his throat, so he simply rolled his eyes backwards. Harry took that for a yes and stepped away, tossing the wand at Avery’s feet.

One of the snakes in the wire cage hissed, “ _I think I have found a way out._ ”

Harry whipped around at once and conjured another cage around the first one. Then he Levitated the whole thing into the air. He would let Riddle Vanish them, if he wanted; he seemed to care enough about snakes that he might get offended if Harry did it.

The Knights who had been leaning towards him jumped back. Harry looked at them and narrowed his eyes. “Anyone else interested in attacking me, too?”

“No,” Abraxas said hastily. “You’re fine as a Potter the way you were as a Keller. Better, even!”

Several of the others murmured reassurances, while Riddle said nothing. Harry didn’t think they’d _missed_ that Riddle said nothing. With a little sigh, he turned around. He wanted to get out of here and go home and think. He wanted to be out of an atmosphere where he had to watch his every step.

Riddle’s eyes were dark and enormous, as if he had taken a Concussion Hex to the head. Harry stared at him. _What the hell?_

“ _You understood what the snake was saying. As I know that you understand me now. Don’t you, Harry?”_

Harry held himself motionless, and his face expressionless as well. He just blinked at Riddle and waited.

Riddle made a gesture with his hand at the rest of the Knights, never looking away from Harry. “Go home. I will summon you again when I wish to see you. For this moment, understand that Harry Potter is one of us.”

The Knights scattered at once, even Avery, who limped from the room leaning on the arm of the strange Black. Then Riddle used his wand to swing the doors of the massive room shut with an echoing boom.

They stood in silence, except for the soft hisses of the caged snakes to each other and the ones of the grey snake on Riddle’s arm, which was urging him to eat Harry now, before he caused more trouble. Harry just stood there and continued to play deaf.

Riddle stood up and hissed to the grey snake, “ _There is more than one kind of feasting_.” And he left the snake on the arm of the throne and descended the steps of the dais towards Harry, his stride a stalk by now.

Harry watched him coming closer. He thought Riddle would draw his wand, but that didn’t happen. He thought Riddle’s eyes would change and he would laugh, but that didn’t happen, either. He just kept walking.

 _Well, I would be stupid to stand here and wait for him. Maybe he means that he’s going to feast on my magic._ Harry reached down and gripped the button in his pocket that Albus had enchanted into a Portkey for him. He’d emphasized that Harry shouldn’t use it unless he felt he was in danger of his life, since it meant he’d probably lose his ability to spy on Riddle. But this qualified.

Riddle moved the last few steps in a sudden run, and slammed Harry back against the wall. Harry hissed in pain as his head collided with the stone, but didn’t lose his hold on the Portkey. That meant he should be able to use it as he needed. He pressed his fingers down until they were flat against the small holes in the button and opened his mouth.

Riddle kissed him.

Harry’s mind went absolutely flat and blank for a second. Then he reached out and pushed the man back.

Or tried. Riddle’s hands shot up and caged his wrists, closing down hard enough that tendon got pressed to bone and Harry’s head spun with pain. Then he pinned Harry’s hands above his head and continued the kiss.

Harry held as still as he could, willing the kiss not to affect him. But once again, as had happened at that dinner, Harry found himself yielding. Everything in his mouth seemed liquid and melting. Everything below his waist was very much _not_.

Part of him wanted this, not because it was Riddle but because it was _sex_ and it felt wonderful to be desired, and he hadn’t let himself come close to anyone in the past two years he’d spent in this time, and—

His head spun even faster as one of Riddle’s hands slid down inside his pants, and he arched his hips to meet the grasp. And then he shook himself past the pleasure and realized that meant one of his hands was free from that punishing grip.

And he _hadn’t noticed_.

Harry tried to punch Riddle. Riddle dodged back without loosening his hold on Harry, and without tightening it. Harry groaned as Riddle reached the tip and stroked him again, lean, clever fingers inside the cloth.

“ _I don’t think sex should be a punishment_ ,” Riddle hissed.

“ _Neither do I_ ,” Harry said, finally yielding enough to stop pretending that he didn’t understand Parseltongue. The flare of wild triumph in Riddle’s eyes made him want to punch him again. “ _That’s why I’m not going to have it with you._ ”

“ _Who else here is your equal? Who else here could give you what you need?”_

_“I don’t need anything from you!”_

Harry had known this would happen. Now that he was separated from Riddle and breathing normally, the kiss was losing its power over him. He could still feel Riddle’s hand on him, but it wasn’t as strong without Riddle’s tongue in his mouth. Harry counted to three in his head, and then tore himself away completely.

Riddle let his hand fall. His eyes were hot as Harry had never seen them. This was some window into a part of Riddle’s soul that he didn’t know, one that maybe Riddle had abandoned by the time he became the diary shade.

“You’re all that I want,” Riddle whispered.

“Right, someone new for you to dominate and play with.” Harry had caught his breath by now, he really had. Riddle’s look making him _feel_ breathless wasn’t something he was going to admit to. “And it would last until you got bored of me. No, thank you.”

“I couldn’t ever get bored of you.”

Harry rolled his eyes, because this was more familiar ground. “Yeah, you think that now, and you might even sound sincere—”

“I am sincere.”

Riddle spoke with no emphasis at all, his eyes locked on Harry. Harry paused for a second, because that was also different from the way he’d heard Riddle speak up until this point, but logic came and saved him.

 _He’s a brilliant liar. He might even be telling the truth now and lying to himself. Remember that he doesn’t know what love’s like, and you want to be with someone who does._ It steadied Harry, rescued him.

“Until the moment when it got inconvenient or you got bored,” Harry repeated. He had his breath now. He had his balance. He wasn’t going to stay here and fantasize about what might happen if Riddle could heal his soul, because he also knew that wasn’t going to happen. “Thanks for reminding me of my place in your ranks, Riddle. I’ll be going now.”

“Your place is at my side, Harry.”

The unnerving thing—the most unnerving thing in an evening full of them, which was unfair—was the way Riddle turned away after speaking those words, banished Harry’s cage, and called the serpents Harry had conjured to him. In seconds, he was draped with them. He walked out of the room without looking at Harry again.

Harry took his wand and went home. And he lay on the thin mattress with his arm over his eyes, hour after hour, and didn’t touch himself.

He gave in before dawn, and burned through the humiliation of knowing it was Riddle’s eyes and Riddle’s hand and Riddle’s mouth he was seeing as he stroked himself. And then he went to sleep, because he had Auror training in the morning.

*

“Keller. Stay behind.”

Harry bit his lip and said nothing as he watched the other trainees file out of the classroom. He had already noticed that everyone in the room except him had a pure-blood last name, and their instructor was Auror Nott. That had to mean he was going to be strutted at about his Muggleborn status.

Auror Nott was a tall man with flowing black hair and the blankest face that Harry had ever seen. But that expression—or lack of expression—only lasted until the other students were out of the classroom. Then he leaned forwards and said with quiet intensity, “Why are you here?”

“Your mates wouldn’t bloody well leave me alone after my display of magic in Diagon Alley, that’s why,” Harry snapped. Then he wondered how much trouble he was now in.

Well, it might make things better, honestly. Harry would rather deal with open hostility any day than covert sneering.

What he got was another long, slow blink that made him wonder if Nott had lizards in the family tree. Then he said, “No. That is not what I meant. Why are you here when your display of dueling skill is already beyond anything many of these morons will ever learn?”

 _Morons, the new dunderheads._ Then again, Harry wasn’t sure Snape had ever complimented him. He said, “I have to take the class, sir. That’s what Auror Greengrass told me. I don’t have a choice.”

Nott continued to study him. Then he said, “There are certain people it might benefit you to come to the attention of, Keller.”

Harry did wonder if he was talking about Riddle, but he had no way of knowing and no intention of dropping a hint in case he was wrong. He grinned as brainlessly as he could at Nott and said, “Really? You can bring me to the attention of the Auror leadership? That would be great.”

Nott gave a grating laugh that made the hair on Harry’s neck try to flee. “Oh, too late to pretend that you don’t have a soupcon of knowledge in that pretty head, Keller. I’ll speak to my associates and see what I can tell you later.” He turned his back and stalked out through the banded oak-and-iron door in the back of the classroom.

 _What the hell is up with people thinking I’m pretty since I came back in time?_ Harry demanded of himself as he marched out the other door. _As a method of manipulation, it’s bloody ridiculous._

*

“And it’s just getting harder and harder to know what Riddle is doing, and now there’s this business with Nott.”

Albus made sympathetic noises as he sipped at the teacup Harry had handed him. He came under illusions or Polyjuice most of the time now, just in case one of Riddle’s Knights saw him and wondered why Riddle’s greatest enemy was visiting Harry. “From what I know of Rickham Nott, he is independent of Riddle’s forces. That does not mean that he will not introduce you into intrigue, of course.”

Harry sighed and rubbed his forehead. The Auror trainee classes paid a tiny stipend that was meant to supply meals and books and not much else. Harry was still working in Ophelia’s shop most of the time, and sleeping in his small room. It seemed filled with the cloudy stars on Albus’s robes right now.

“I fear that I have been instrumental in getting you involved in intrigue as well.”

“Yours was the one I chose, though.” Harry managed to muster a wan smile. “Thanks for it. I was drifting through my days before this and trying to determine when I should intervene. Or if I even should. Now at least I have something to _do_.”

“Forgive me, Harry. But it sounds as if you wish this particular excitement hadn’t come seeking you. What’s wrong?”

Harry stared into his tea. He wondered if Albus was his best choice for a confidant. On the one hand, he might be shocked by the fact that Harry was so tempted by Tom Riddle.

On the other hand, who else did Harry know who’d once dated a Dark Lord?

On the _third_ hand, Harry still thought of Albus as his professor, and he wasn’t about to confess sex fantasies to him. He even kept his eyes lowered as he muttered, “Sometimes, Riddle offers things that—tempt me. And it’s horrifying. I thought I was better than that.”

“Oh, my dear boy. You don’t need to worry about that. None of us is above temptation. I would be more worried if you _did_ think you were. That would suggest that you aren’t watching out for the threats that might come your way. As long as you’re alert and refusing temptation, no matter how nervously, you are doing everything I could ask.”

Harry sat still and let Albus’s reassuring words flow over him. Here they were more equal than they’d ever been in his own time, and he was taking the risks and sharing the knowledge that Albus had. Harry glanced up with a faint smile. “Thanks, sir.”

“Call me Albus. I do insist.”

Their conversation didn’t last much longer after that, before Albus drank the Polyjuice that disguised him as a dark-haired wizard about half his age and left again. Harry stood to watch him go through the window, and tapped his chin with one finger. He hadn’t told Albus about Riddle’s discovery of his Parseltongue.

Then again, he couldn’t stand to watch the light die in Albus’s eyes. And considering how he’d reacted to a young Tom Riddle who bragged about being able to speak to snakes, Harry was horribly afraid that it would.

Harry sighed and turned away to do the washing up.

There was a single, enormous crash on his door, and Harry was on the floor with the shattered remains of teacups about him and under the table before he even consciously thought about it. He raised a ward behind the door, but it had already flown open, and Riddle was past it, striding towards him.

 _He’s found out about Albus._ Harry shifted to the side, and began recklessly calling up all his power. He would need it to survive a contest with Riddle, especially in such close quarters.

Riddle didn’t have his wand drawn, though. Harry narrowed his eyes and looked for serpents following him. There were none.

Utterly confused, he let Riddle pull him out from under the table and pin him up against the wall. At least his hands were fastened on Harry’s face this time, not his wrists, and his expression was worked in a furious snarl that Harry hoped would have nothing to do with sex.

“What the fuck, Riddle?” Harry snarled back at him. “ _Some_ of us can’t afford to pay for our doors when you throw them open like that—”

“Who was he?”

“What are you on about?” Harry struggled for a second, but that just made the damn hands shift to and pin his wrists.

“The man who just walked down the street. The one who’s been coming to _see you_. Do you want to see how jealous I am, Harry? Do you need proof that I don’t share?”

Harry stared with an open mouth for a second, and then began helplessly to laugh. Riddle remained still other than the flexing of his fingers against Harry’s wrists. The murderous light in his eyes hadn’t dimmed.

“You think—you think I have a _lover_?” Harry wheezed, and shook his head, and let it slump forwards until his forehead was practically resting against Riddle’s chest. “Oh, Merlin. Just—you idiot.”

“I would let no one except you get away with that.”

Riddle’s voice coiled around him, so low and intense that it felt like being strangled by a serpent, and chased Harry’s laughter away. He pulled back and scowled at Riddle. “I _don’t_ have one. He’s one of the few people who’s advising me on how to use my power responsibly, instead of just deciding that I’m a danger or an asset or something. You know, like _you._ Now, let go, Riddle.”

He tugged, and then he tried to kick. But he couldn’t get enough space to touch anything except Riddle’s shins, and Riddle’s face had taken on a cast that frightened Harry far more than anything he’d seen of it so far. It wasn’t alabaster, it wasn’t marble, it wasn’t poison. Instead, Riddle looked as though the sun was shining on his face from far away.

“You resist my seduction for reasons I understand now,” Riddle said, slow and soft as dripping honey. “I need to convince you that I can be gentle, hm?” He raised his hand and trailed his fingers along Harry’s cheek.

Harry caught his breath. Tingles of warmth spread out from Riddle’s fingers and into his cheek like strokes from fur. He arched his back and gasped before he could stop himself.

“Yes, that is the way to do it.” Riddle’s eyes were narrowed as if he was studying some complex Arithmancy equation. Again and again he trailed his hand over Harry’s cheek.

It should have stopped bloody _working_ after the first time! And yet Harry felt gooseflesh spreading down his arms, and he turned his head towards Riddle and thought he could have sold his soul for that.

That, and the gentle kiss that followed, and the way Riddle gently massaged his wrists as if apologizing for pinning him against the wall, and the gathering way, soft as a cloud, that Riddle steered him towards his bed.

Harry recovered from the haze when he landed on the bed and Riddle began quietly to remove his clothing. He sucked in a deep breath meant to chase all of the—the damn incense-like atmosphere out of his lungs and shook his head.

“No, then?” Riddle paused, his fingers tucked inside the collar of Harry’s shirt where he’d begun to unbutton it.

Harry closed his eyes. He could have resisted if Riddle had ignored his request; he could have resisted if Riddle had ripped his hands away and acted offended. But this softness, this damn _softness,_ and the way that his fingertips swept back and forth idly on Harry’s chest...

“You’re hard,” Riddle noted, as if it was just a fact and he didn’t intend to do anything with it, lowering his eyes to Harry’s groin and then lifting them back to Harry’s face.

Yes, he was, harder than he’d ever been in his life. Apparently what he really wanted was to be romanced and seduced and spoken to like—

Like he mattered.

Harry shut his eyes and heard his breath rasping as he struggled for control. Riddle’s hands stayed in place and didn’t change, except that his thumbs swept back and forth a little more.

Harry’d been so goddamn _alone_ in his two years here. Even Albus’s company now didn’t make up for what he’d lost. And he’d spoken to few people, kept his head down, because he was afraid of changing time, but that just made him more isolated. No friends at Hogwarts, only casual acquaintances. No lovers. No one who had hugged him or touched his hand like Hermione used to or leaned against his shoulder and looked at him with concerned eyes.

Riddle was...

Riddle tweaked one of his nipples and made even that seem like a tender gesture, and Harry gasped and arched up to meet him.

“It’s not going to hurt anyone,” Riddle said, in a voice a breath above a whisper. “Not if you give in.”

_It could hurt me._

But at the moment, Harry couldn’t imagine a greater pain than lying here and telling Riddle to go away, and being left _alone_ again. Virtuous, yes, but Albus and the Aurors and the other people who had come to interview him after his display of power in Diagon Alley weren’t doing anything to alleviate that loneliness.

And surely it meant something that Riddle, who never used softness even when he could, was making himself gentle now to appeal to Harry? Even if it only meant he really wanted Harry, at least it meant that.

Harry was so goddamn tired of being alone.

“Yes,” he said softly, opening his eyes, and reached for Riddle.

Riddle kissed him and went back to unbuttoning his shirt. His touch left burning trails in its wake. Harry gasped and gasped, and went on gasping, because once Riddle got Harry out of his shirt, he bent down and fastened his mouth around Harry’s right nipple.

It felt like nothing he’d ever felt. It was fire and pleasure, and Harry reached up and started tearing at Riddle’s clothes himself, because if this was what sex was going to feel like, he saw how people didn’t much care who they were having it with.

He did. Still. But the fact that this was Riddle was less important than the fact that he was here.

Riddle shed his own robes quickly, his eyes huge and dark and so expressive that Harry found himself smiling at him. Riddle didn’t smile. He bent down and kissed Harry again, then pulled back and clasped Harry’s shoulders in his hands.

Harry strained forwards impatiently, but Riddle held him there.

“What?” Harry finally snapped.

“I want you to look at me.”

Harry did, although by now he was shivering with impatient desire and it wasn’t easy to go as slowly as Riddle apparently wanted him to. Riddle had a few scars on his arms and elbows, and his skin was mostly pale, and he had muscles that Harry wouldn’t have attributed to him, and his tongue _wasn’t_ forked, and his cock was hard and his hands were tender and Harry knew Riddle could give him pleasure.

“I like what I see,” Harry whispered. “Come here.”

Riddle smiled in an agreeable way. “Of course you do,” he said, but the way he reached for Harry was still gentle.

That was all Harry wanted. He squirmed under Riddle until they had a good angle and their cocks were glancing together. Riddle still made slow movements with his hips, as if unsure of his welcome, and Harry spread himself open for it, wanting far more of that than he would the sharp, impatient movements he’d thought Riddle would make.

“Going slow with you,” Riddle said, and didn’t finish the sentence. His eyelashes were black marks against his skin. He was panting. Harry lifted his arms and wrapped his hands around Riddle’s shoulders.

“Yes?” Harry whispered encouragingly. Then all the words bled away from him as a long, slow river of pleasure took their place, as Riddle’s cock scraped against his and caught under the head. Harry grunted breathlessly, and his whole body seemed to tremble and sing.

“Is worth it,” Riddle said. His hand shot down between their bodies and gave Harry’s cock a precise, subtle twist.

Harry came suddenly, and pleasure baked him inside and out. He couldn’t touch Riddle back, couldn’t do anything but lie there and absorb how his body shuddered and the back of his eyelids turned white.

Riddle came on top of him with a wordless hiss a few moments later. He crashed down into Harry’s chest and lay there, panting, stunned. Or Harry thought he might be stunned from the way he was breathing. He didn’t actually open his eyes to check.

Riddle cast a number of spells then. Harry thought he might be cleaning up and getting dressed, getting ready to leave. Again, he couldn’t make himself open his eyes. It might sting a little in the morning if Riddle did go, but for now, Harry was absolutely content.

To his surprise, Riddle lay down next to him. Harry did manage to crack one eyelid and look a question.

“Making your blankets thicker and warmer,” Riddle said, his voice without smugness. It sounded almost unnatural. Harry thought about getting up or asking a question, but he couldn’t. He curled close to Riddle instead, memorizing the warmth and the way his chest rose and fell.

In the morning, he would feel ashamed. In the morning, he would have to confront what he’d done, and think seriously about telling Albus what had happened. But for now...God, he just knew he wasn’t _alone._

“Rest. _I_ will guard your sleep.”

In another mood, Harry would have asked who the hell else would be guarding it, when Riddle knew he didn’t have a lover, but he just curled up harder and found his face somewhere in the vicinity of Riddle’s hipbone and went to sleep instead. The last thing he knew might have been a hand stroking his hair.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will have a sequel eventually, probably to be called “The Grand Design.” I don’t know when it will be posted, but this is definitely not the end of the series.

Morning came and was every bit as hellish as Harry had anticipated.

He felt Riddle moving next to him and tried to shift back, but only ended up tumbling to the side and almost falling out of bed. He needed Riddle’s grip on his wrists to rescue him. Harry came up red-faced and wondering what the hell had gone through his head last night.

Except he knew. He’d decided sex with Riddle was better than being lonely. He might wonder now how he could be so weak, but he knew he’d made the decision.

“Do you intend to hide your face forever, Harry?”

Riddle’s voice was thick and lazy and _teasing_ , which was worse than the bitter mockery Harry had expected. He managed to sink his elbows into a firm place on the bed that wouldn’t betray him at the first opportunity—he thought Riddle had made the bed both bigger and softer—and looked up.

Riddle was gazing back at him, his expression practically incandescent. He reached out and caressed Harry’s face the way he had last night.

It felt as good as it had then. But Harry, well, if he was still stupid, he was stronger of will than he’d been. He took a deep breath and moved away as much as he could without falling off the bed again.

“Oh, you think it’s going to be like that?” Riddle’s voice lowered. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded like a cat presented with the opportunity to hunt its favorite prey. “You really believe I would allow you to put distance between us again?”

“The last thing I heard, having sex with someone unwilling was called rape, Riddle.”

“Sex was not first on my mind.”

Harry stared at him again. Riddle reached out, giving Harry plenty of time to avoid the touch if he wanted, and smoothed his fingers up Harry’s arm and then down again. They still left fire in their wake. Harry was more affected by the way Riddle watched him. Having sex with him hadn’t eased the starvation Riddle was showing him.

Which made no sense at all. Riddle had looked at him with hunger because Harry was a virgin, or because he was stubborn and resisting Riddle. Why would he want to sleep with him _now_ , when those weren’t true?

“I want someone to stand at my side,” Riddle said, his voice as soft as the plunk of shillings falling into a well. “True, for most of the time I’ve been alive, I believed I had no equal. But that makes me all the more likely to hold on to the one person who’s proved to be that.”

_What tales did he tell the other Knights of Walpurgis? This is the way he has of seducing you to his cause. No matter how good it feels, you know that he did something exactly like it before. Hell, for all you know, he’s slept with half his Knights, or all of them._

Harry licked his lips and kept his eyes on Riddle’s as he said, “I don’t think that can happen. I just don’t think—you’re capable of that. Maybe you once were. But after what happened in fifth year, you wouldn’t be.”

Riddle stared at him in silence. Harry got ready to reach for his wand. His magic was already thrumming under his skin. He was sure it could keep him safe if Riddle shot a curse at him. Well, fairly sure. This _was_ Tom Riddle they were talking about.

“What do you mean?”

“You _know_ , Riddle. Opening the Chamber. Releasing the basilisk. Killing Myrtle. Oh, sure, I wasn’t at the school at the time, but it was easy to put together the clues later. It would have been easy for other people if they weren’t blinded by your charm. And I know what _else_ you must have done once you started looking into ways to live forever.”

Silence. Blank staring. Part of Harry had honestly expected that, but he did wonder why it had lasted so long without someone lashing out.

“Are you a Legilimens?” Riddle whispered. “Have you been looking into my mind?”

Harry shook his head. “I’ve had people try to teach me Legilimency. They all said I was hopeless at it.” Even the Albus of this dimension had tried, and then given up, telling Harry that his mind had the closest resemblance to a leaky sieve Albus had ever seen. Harry had tried to take that as a compliment.

“Then you must have seen into my soul.” Riddle inched a little closer to him across the blankets. Harry brought the whirling magic beneath his skin closer to the surface, in response. “I _did_ consider the way of immortality that I think you’re talking about, yes. And the moment when the basilisk killed Myrtle was the moment when I could have made one.”

“Could? _Did_ , Riddle.”

“You misunderstand me,” Riddle said, almost whispering now. “Could is not did. I found the information about Horcuxes. I also found the information that I would lose my mind if I attempted to make them. I value my mind, my brilliance that sets me apart from others, more than I fear death.”

Harry stared at him. It was true that Riddle acted saner here than the diary shade had. But the diary shade had already been a Horcrux. How was Harry supposed to know how the actual human Riddle had acted? And he had—he had every motive to lie now and fool Harry. If he thought Harry knew about his Horcrux, how to find it, how to _destroy_ it, then he would do anything he could to protect it.

“You’re lying.” Harry’s voice was a shaky whistle. He reached for his wand, ready to his hand. Riddle didn’t draw his own; he lay silently in place, staring at Harry with a starvation that had only grown worse. “I _know_ you made a Horcrux.”

“Rather, you guessed, and you can’t stand that your guess was wrong.” Riddle was faintly smiling now, but it didn’t lessen that longing in his eyes. “You wanted to know, a few days ago, why I am doing what I am doing, did you not? You couldn’t figure it out.”

“I know what you want! You want to rule over pure-bloods and punish people who thought you were a Muggleborn at first and live forever—’

“Living forever is a goal for the future,” Riddle interrupted him softly. “I’m nineteen, just like you, Harry. I haven’t even come into my full strength yet. Someday I will find a method that doesn’t cost me my mind or my magic.”

“There _is_ nothing like that! All the paths to immortality are tainted!”

“I doubt you know them all, Harry. But for now, I have other goals. Yes, I want to punish the people who thought I was someone they could scorn. I have them crawling at my feet now, begging to kiss them. Yes, it’s heady. But the deeper goal than that is the one you haven’t guessed at, Harry. No one has, because all of them would think it was too plebian for me.”

“And you’re going to tell _me_? Really? The one who made a damaging guess about you, the one that you—”

“You’re panicking. For a moment, I wondered why. Now I know. I’m about to change your perceptions of me, aren’t I? I’m about to make you have to confront the ideas you had and change them. And if you alter them far enough, you’ll be mine.”

Harry let his lips draw back from his teeth. He would use magic before anything else to take on Riddle, of course, but the thought of biting him was so fucking _satisfying._ “You aren’t going to corrupt me. You aren’t going to taint me. You aren’t going to mark me.”

“You haven’t heard what I’m working towards, yet.”

“It’s going to be tainted.”

“Why?” Riddle traced a finger down Harry’s bare leg again. Harry jumped and turned so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He knew it was useless to hide the fact that he was half-hard. Riddle’s sidelong glance said that.

“Because I know what you’re like,” Harry snapped over his shoulder. “And even if I didn’t have eyes, I have ears. I know that you slept with half the people in our year and most of the ones in the year below, at least if they could give you something. You’re not—this isn’t going to last.”

“Do hear what my ultimate goal is, before you judge me and make yourself look stupid.”

Harry hissed out a long breath through his nose, but said nothing. He knew that Albus himself had wondered whether Riddle’s goal was just political domination; he seemed to be moving too slowly if that was the case, and have too small a group of followers. Harry had to listen, in case it was something valuable he could report on.

“That’s better,” Riddle said softly, when Harry didn’t move again. “Now. I spent most of my childhood cold and lonely, hungry and bullied. My first years at Hogwarts weren’t that much better. I knew I could become more powerful in my magic, but ultimately that wouldn’t keep me safe. Someone could snap my wand or take it from me. Dumbledore was suspicious of me, and he blocked me from some paths I could have followed. So. What do you think I did?”

“I’m sure you’re about to enlighten me.”

“I decided that by the time I was an adult, I would be utterly _safe_ and protected. I would build up my inner circle, and some outer circles too, and allies, and places that I felt safe, and my fortune, until no one could take them from me.”

Harry stared at him. Now that he thought about it, that _did_ make a lot of sense out of some of Riddle’s motivations. They met in different houses because Riddle didn’t want to stay too long in any one. His group of followers was small because he wouldn’t have anyone near him that he didn’t trust completely. He could afford to take his time to build up political connections because succeeding at politics was something that would keep him safer, not the overriding goal that it seemed it had been for the diary shade.

It wasn’t the motivation Harry would have suspected from him at all. Then again, this was a different world, a different Tom Riddle.

_I changed things by coming back in time. Did I change this, too?_

Harry shook his head. He couldn’t know, and he wouldn’t drive himself mad trying to figure it out. “So how do I fit into all this, then? I’m not someone who can give you a house or money or something like that.”

“There was something else I promised myself,” Riddle said. “But I knew it might not be achievable, not the way safety was. If I found someone capable of standing at my side, someone I wanted fiercely, then I would do my best to capture and hold their interest. And I would make sure that my allies and money and safehouses protected them, as well.”

Harry shut his eyes. _No, wait, Riddle is still the same as he was in my world. Because he’s utterly insane._

“You’ve known me a month, Riddle,” he said tiredly. “Hogwarts doesn’t count, we never interacted then. And all you really know about me is that I’m a Hufflepuff and an illegitimate Potter and magically powerful. You’re—what, willing to risk all you built on _that_?”

“I don’t find the likes of you every day, Harry.”

“You wanted a powerful follower. I could still be that. You don’t really—”

Riddle’s hand came to rest on his knee. It was warm and shocking enough that Harry’s eyes shot open. Riddle was leaning towards him, the intense stare raking Harry as if to scrape the flesh off his bones. His other hand was hovering, but fell to the sheets as Harry watched.

“I’m willing to risk it because no one has made me feel a _hundredth_ of what you do,” Riddle said. “I had come to accept that I would never find someone to stand at my side, not because no one worthy existed, but because I looked at those who might have been worthy and felt nothing. And then _you_. You make me _burn_.”

He practically hissed the last word, and Harry nearly hissed back, and then told himself not to, and then reminded himself that Riddle knew he was a Parselmouth now, there was no point in hiding. Harry switched to Parseltongue to reply, hoping against hope that it would convince Riddle. “ _You can’t really think that your followers are going to accept you dating someone—_ ”

“ _I will make them accept it. I have done harder things. I have made them bow at the feet of a half-blood, someone they tormented for being a Mudblood a few years ago. I have resisted the temptation to make a Horcrux. I want you. I will have you._ ”

“ _I told you what sex with the unwilling is called._ ”

“ _Not against your will, Harry,”_ Riddle murmured, and took his hand off Harry’s knee, although he trailed his fingers gently up the side again, making Harry clench his teeth on the wordless hiss. “I will spend years seducing you, if necessary. I know you have qualms. I will answer them. I will soothe them. I will give you whatever you want and need to stand at my side.”

Harry just stared at him helplessly. It seemed like all his arguments kept dissolving into thin air, or spit, or something, the minute Riddle started answering them.

And—

It was strange. There was a squirming thought in the back of his mind, an oozing hope. What if this being a different world, and a different Tom Riddle, meant it _was_ okay to give in and let him do whatever he wanted? Because he wasn’t insane or making Horcruxes or maybe even looking to take over the world. He seemed, most of all, to want to be left alone and safe in his self-created castle of people.

But Harry immediately reprimanded himself. He couldn’t think that way. That way lay surrender and a warm mouth at his throat and—

He cut off his thoughts again and yanked his hand free of Riddle’s. “You can never be what I need. The chance that you could be died when you were younger.”

Riddle only gave a small shrug, which would have looked agreeable if not for the grin tugging at his mouth and the continuous yearning in his eyes. “I thought that I would never find someone for me before I found you, Harry. I’m learning to be wary of pronouncements with the word _never_ in them.”

“This one is true.”

“Like I said, we have years.” Riddle stood and Summoned his clothes, then dressed in a leisurely way while looking at Harry. Harry thought of yanking the blankets up to cover his chest and legs, but honestly, at this point Riddle had seen everything anyway. He matched him stare for stare, instead.

“We have years,” Riddle repeated softly as he finished doing up his shirt. “You can wait as long as you need to talk to me honestly about what you want. We can wait to have sex again. But I’m not going to allow you to pull back, Harry. We’re going to be honest, the way we were this morning.”

“You _wish_.”

“I think I have already proven I am a master at provoking you.”

Riddle smiled at him and swanned out of the room, saying only over his shoulder, “I enjoyed it.”

Harry sat there with his head in his hands.

*

In the end, he didn’t tell Albus. The shame that crowded his throat when he thought about it made him want to vomit. He could bear a lot of things, but not the eyes of the one person in this time who knew the truth about him becoming cold and disappointed.

He did tell him what Riddle had said about wanting to build a circle of safety for himself, and Albus considered it in silence before shaking his head.

“That is part of it, something I didn’t consider before.” Albus sipped from his tea again and put his cup down. He’d tried to make his visits less frequent since Harry told him about Riddle believing Harry had a lover. They communicated by Patronus most of the time now.

 _Another thing Riddle took from me,_ Harry thought, and tried not to grind his hand into his knee.

“But it can’t be the whole thing,” Albus continued. “If he didn’t wish to build his edifice on blood prejudice, he would reach out to talented Muggleborns and members of Houses other than his. Instead, he sought pure-bloods and Slytherins out deliberately. He does have political ambitions. It makes sense that he wouldn’t share them with you yet, though.”

Harry stared at his lightly buttered scones. He wanted to say, _He did seek out a talented Muggleborn—me. Or that’s what he thought I was, anyway. And I saw at least two Knights who were from Ravenclaw. And he sought out the Slytherin pure-bloods because they’re the ones who have the power and money he wants, and he wanted to see them cringing to him, too._

In the end, though, he didn’t voice his suspicions. Because they were justifications of the kind that Riddle might have spewed.

In the end, after Albus had left and Harry was left to stare out the window of his small bedroom and think how lonely he was, now more than before, all he could think was that Riddle had managed to taint him after all.

*

“Come here, Keller. Got some people I want you to meet.”

Harry concealed a sigh as he followed Nott through a door in the back of the main Auror classroom. The man hadn’t taken no for an answer no matter how hard Harry tried to deflect. He had slipped out early a few times and been taught by another Auror a few times, but now he was caught.

They stepped into what looked like a small room the Aurors might use for interrogation or training—bare stone walls, plain but polished wooden furniture. There was a large table in the middle of the room, though, and six chairs around it, filled with people. Harry stared at them warily. There was a tall man with white hair whom he didn’t recognize, but who looked as if he was related to Nott somehow. He had the bastard’s intense stare at Harry, anyway.

The other people, though…

Harry nearly choked on his breath as he recognized messy hair and hazel eyes and other traits from the Mirror of Erised. The man who was rising to his feet as he stared at Harry had his same knobbly knees, and looked a lot like his dad, but didn’t wear glasses. The woman who stood next to him, her hands clasped over her mouth, her eyes filled with tears, had sleek dark hair and dark eyes Harry hadn’t inherited, but he knew she was his grandmother.

 _Fuck_ , Harry thought numbly as he glanced at the other people. A woman who had unmistakable Black features, and a man with floppy black hair and a rueful smile, and a man with Potter hair and a ferocious scowl.

“I think there’s been a mistake?” Harry’s voice was high and squeaked. He cleared his throat and tried again, as best he could. “I don’t know why I’m here. Who are you?” He blinked and looked at his family, trying his best to make it seem as if he had never seen any of them before.

“No mistake.” Nott had moved so that he was lounging against the door behind Harry, and, of course, blocking the way out again. “We know that your name isn’t really Keller, it’s Potter. The resemblance is unmistakable when we looked at it the right way.”

“Why do you care?” Harry demanded. Soft words or pretending not to know what was going on wouldn’t get him out of this situation. “You’re not—”

“My wife is a cousin of the Potters,” said Nott calmly. “So, yes, I do care about the discovery of new family. And for whatever reason you hid your heritage, you don’t need to do it now.”

“Yes, why did you?” whispered the woman Harry knew was Euphemia Potter, James’s mother. His grandmother. _This is mental._ “We have had so much trouble having children, my Fleamont and I. Charlus and Dorea—” she nodded at the other older man and woman “—had only the one son. And—you are Tristan’s.”

“I don’t want him,” the scowling man broke in.

 _So that’s Tristan._ Harry was grateful to the bloke for giving him his path out of this, as little as he approved of anyone who abandoned a child. “That’s right. I know there was a scandal, and I never intended to bring about a scandal for your family. So that’s why I hid. And that’s why we don’t need to have any contact.”

Tristan straightened up a little. “You’re not here to demand money of me?”

“Of course not!” Harry shook his head, even as he was thinking a little wistfully of the vault of gold in Gringotts. He could have used thicker blankets and warmer clothes and bigger meals—but that didn’t matter, not compared to the trouble he was going to run headlong into if he accepted any form of contact from the Potters. “I think we should just go our separate ways, and I can be known publically as a Muggleborn, and—”

“Of _course_ that can’t happen.” Dorea Black apparently had a cold, calm voice when she wanted to use it, and it froze absolutely everyone in the room. She put her hands on her hips and stared at him, and Harry got a glimpse of what he supposed Mrs. Weasley would look like if she had black hair. “You’re a relative of ours. Children are precious, especially for families like the Potters that have had so much trouble producing a recent generation.”

“I’m illegitimate, though!”

“Why does that matter?”

“It would bring about a scandal, I told you.” Harry tried to adopt a condescending tone. Maybe he could get them to dislike him and leave him alone that way. “So we should just go back to our lives.”

“No,” said Fleamont, this time. “My boy— _our_ boy. You might be Tristan’s son, Charlus and Dorea’s grandson, and not ours—”

_Oh, Merlin. This is so mental._

“But you belong to our whole family. Dorea said children are precious. But she is both right and wrong. _You_ are precious. If you only knew what we wished to give you.”

 _Fuck._ Fleamont’s words reached right into the center of Harry’s soul where his loneliness still dwelled, the place that Tom Riddle had accessed so effortlessly. Harry swallowed roughly and looked away. He knew they would see the expression on his face, and, with his luck, judge it accurately.

“You can’t tell me that you enjoy the status of a Muggleborn outcast everyone is going to look down on?” Tristan demanded. “No son of _mine_ would enjoy that.”

 _Apparently I’m his son when it’s convenient,_ Harry thought, and did let them see him rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m not really your son, am I? Because you abandoned me.”

“We packed him off to the Continent because he was getting so wild,” Charlus said at once. “We never knew he’d had a son. Please, Harry, _please_ give us a chance. Forgive us for our ignorance. We want to take you home tonight and talk to you over dinner and get to know you.”

Harry resisted the urge to giggle madly with an effort. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ There went all his plans of lying low and pretending to be an ordinary Muggleborn. First Riddle’s Knights of Walpurgis changing their minds about him, and now this.

He knew, rationally, that all he had to do was start swearing and acting ungrateful enough, and they would let him go. It _had_ to be able to happen that way. He was stubborn enough to get his way.

But he couldn’t make himself open his mouth and act like that. The ache in his chest wouldn’t let him. He was incapable of rejecting his family.

“Um,” he said weakly, aware that he’d been silent and they were all staring at him. “I reckon we could try?”

Dorea swept forwards to hug him, her arms tight, possessive, and right behind her was Charlus, and then came Fleamont and Euphemia. And Tristan managed to shake his hand. And the other tall man, who introduced himself as Everard Nott, Auror Nott’s brother, said that he was happy to see families reunited, and he worked for Gringotts, and he was also happy to arrange the transfer of a Potter vault into Harry’s name.

 _Fuck_ , Harry thought as he got hugged yet again, and this time Dorea didn’t show any sign of letting him go. _I really hope that the world isn’t about to be doomed by love, instead of saved by it._

*

“Did you intend to have your name come out as Harry Potter, my dear boy?”

Harry sighed and leaned back in his chair, watching Albus carefully. He hated that he had to be this careful with the man who was still the only one who knew he’d traveled back in time.

He hated it, but not as much as he would have a few days ago. He had the Potter family, sulky as his “father” might be, surrounding him, insisting that he visit when he was done with Auror training in the evenings, dragging him around to shop after shop, and trying to talk him out of working for Ophelia. Harry had told them he would stay until she found another shop assistant. That wasn’t enough to satisfy Dorea, but at least the rest had backed off.

And he had—Riddle.

He’d received long, thoughtful letters from him each day since he’d “found” his family, discussing some of the political maneuvers that Riddle might perform to let the pure-bloods believe he was on their side while also promoting the rights of Muggleborns and half-bloods. He’d woken up to a delivery of white roses, intertwined with lilies. And Riddle had sent him a single piece of parchment that honestly didn’t make sense: an image of two golden snakes with their heads dangling down to the sides, their bodies looped and coiled and intertwined.

Harry would have to ask him what the hell _that_ meant the next time he saw him.

“I didn’t intend it,” Harry finally answered. “But Auror Nott wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I don’t think Fleamont or Euphemia or any of the Potters would have, either, once they found out about me. I did try to convince them that maybe the resemblance was a coincidence.”

“How?”

“I said that my mother had never been very clear about who she slept with. I said I’d had my suspicions after I saw some old pictures of Fleamont in the papers, but that I never would have approached them based on that.”

“What was the result?”

Harry sighed. “Dorea promptly cast a spell that confirmed I have their blood.” Harry was lucky that either spells hadn’t advanced beyond that point yet or his family didn’t know any of them, because having his true parents’ and grandparents’ names show up on a family tree or something would have been incredibly upsetting.

At least Dorea, as someone who had broken with her family to marry a blood traitor, wasn’t welcome back in Grimmauld Place and wouldn’t see that there was no name beneath Tristan’s on _that_ tapestry.

“I see,” Albus murmured. “Well. What do they have to say of your association with Riddle?”

“They don’t know about it,” Harry said flatly. “And they won’t.” _Until Riddle forces the issue._ Dorea had already teased Harry about the snake image, which had come while he was staying overnight with his “grandparents.”

“It may be hard to hide.”

“We’ll see,” Harry said. Now that he knew—or thought he knew—that Riddle didn’t want immediate political prominence, he thought it entirely possible that his membership in the Knights of Walpurgis might remain masked for a long time. Riddle’s followers wouldn’t betray him. Riddle might introduce Harry in other contexts, though…

Harry felt his face heat up. _Stop it. You know that he’s lying about being able to love you. It’s a convincing act, but all an act._

“If you have to choose,” Albus said, his eyes wide and earnest, “between protecting the future and protecting your newfound family, what will you choose?”

Harry’s hands tightened almost enough to crack the teacup.

“You won’t ask me to make that choice,” Harry said. “Or I would walk away.”

Albus nodded, looking suddenly old. “I know. But once I—thought I had the choice between my family and a grand future for myself. I sacrificed the wrong thing, and broke both of them. Simply a warning, my dear boy. I know your family loves you. But can you keep them as they are? Stay in this timeline and leave the future to burn?”

Harry closed his eyes. “You’re saying that the choice is between my family’s future and my own, like yours.”

“Yes.”

“But still different, because their future has to include the way things were, or they won’t survive. Or maybe my father will never be born, _I’ll_ never be born. And my future, in this case, would be the one where I stay with them and decide that this timeline is my own and I don’t care about what’s to come.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said time was resilient,” Harry muttered, grasping at every straw he could. “That the timeline wouldn’t break, but would pop back into place.”

“Certain things are. But what would happen if Fleamont and Euphemia never have a child, because they are satisfied knowing you? Or if they become desperate to have one and use fertility potions or other means earlier, and the child who is born is not your father?”

Harry put his hand to his head and the old faded traces of his lightning bolt scar. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Simply do not fall too far,” Albus said softly. “Keep an eye on them, an eye on Tom. Know that even if they intend the best for you—and I cannot believe that Tom does—they cannot _do_ the best, because they do not know everything.”

_And I don’t want my father never to be born. Or never to marry my mum. I want them to—have better lives, not no lives._

Harry went to bed that night as lonely as he had been when he arrived in this time.

*

Riddle opened the door of his flat and walked right in, as usual.

“Go away, Riddle,” Harry snarled from the middle of the bed. He hadn’t risen for the last few days except to attend Auror training and eat. He’d ignored the invitations, and when he saw Dorea waiting for him at one entrance of the Ministry, he’d turned and walked the other way.

He _had_ to put them behind him. He had to accept that he might have made a mistake by getting to know them at all, as hard as it would have been to avoid them when Nott shoved him into the interrogation room.

Did he love them? Then he had to give them up, try to pull back and not disturb the timeline more than absolutely necessary.

And he’d avoided Riddle.

Riddle sat down on the bed next to him, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “I know that you’re trying to act as if you’re not related to the Potters,” he said. “As if we never slept together. Did no one ever tell you that you can’t change the past?”

Harry gave a laugh that he knew was ugly. And then it kept going, so he knew he was also hysterical. He put an arm over his eyes and rolled away from Riddle, almost choking on the laughter, wrestling it to death.

_Merlin, how is this my life?_

Riddle’s hand slipped onto his shoulder, and tightened. Then he leaned in and pressed his other hand to the middle of Harry’s back. The touch was almost as grounding as an embrace. Harry gasped and caught control of himself again.

He tried to shrug off Riddle’s touch. Riddle didn’t move.

“Maybe part of you wishes it hadn’t happened this way,” Riddle continued in a quiet, heavy voice. “Maybe part of you wishes that you weren’t getting to know your family as a suddenly exposed illegitimate half-blood, and maybe part of you wishes that you had found some nameless, happy Hufflepuff to love. But it’s happened. You have to live with it. You have to make the best of it.”

“I don’t _love_ you!”

“But you could,” Riddle whispered, and his breath was a long, quick sigh over Harry’s ear, making him squirm. “Listen to me, Harry. You have the chance to have so much. Why refuse it? Why turn your back on it?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I don’t. And I know you won’t explain. But I know one thing. I am never going to let go of someone I think I could love.”

Harry breathed out, staring at the wall. He had the impression that the Potters of this time wouldn’t, either. He could avoid them for a few days, but sooner or later, one of them would barge in here the way Tom had and demand an explanation. Or Euphemia would cry, and he didn’t think he could stand to see that, either.

Tom’s hand smoothed slowly over his shoulder.

“Why did you send me that image of two snakes?” Harry whispered. It was the only question drifting at the forefront of his mind right now.

“Because that is the kind of mark that we could share together,” Tom answered. “Someday, when you’re not opposed to the idea. Two snakes entwined together. Different than the mark my Knights bear, but a mark all the same. I would carry it with you.”

Harry shut his eyes hard. “You don’t love me, either.”

“I know that. But as I said, you taught me what it might feel like to do so. I am not going to yield that. I am not going to yield _you_.”

Tom said it as a fact, hard and definite. And part of Harry, small and miserable, rejoiced in that he was held dear by someone, and not for the blood that did run in his veins, backwards in time.

_He still doesn’t know the truth. He would reject you if he knew._

“We can continue to sit like this for the rest of the night, Harry, if you would rather. Or you can sit up, get dressed and washed, and come with me. There is a meal in Abraxas’s manor that is being saved for you.”

Harry shivered. He didn’t know if he could have told the truth at the moment even under Veritaserum. Was he yielding because he hoped he could change the future for the better, tame Tom Riddle, prevent the war from happening, and still encourage Euphemia and Fleamont to have his father on time? Or was he yielding because the loneliness was still a gaping wound inside him, and he was too weak to resist?

Tom Riddle didn’t love him. On the other hand, he didn’t want him because of his fame or the Horcrux or the money Harry might stand to inherit from his family someday. Just for—who he was. What Harry made him feel.

Harry rolled slowly back over. Tom was staring at him, that endless hunger in his eyes. Harry raised a hand and laid it cautiously against Tom’s cheek. He got fluttering eyes in response and a deep sigh that seemed to rise up from Tom’s toes.

“I don’t know if I can give you everything that you’re missing,” Tom whispered. “Let me try.”

 _I don’t know if I can believe you._ Harry took a deep breath. _Let me try._

“Yes,” he said. “All right.” And he got up and cast some Cleaning Charms on himself and donned some fresh robes, and walked through his door next to Tom Riddle.

He didn’t know of any way to go back to his own time. He didn’t know of any way to be the perfect spy in the Knights of Walpurgis and the perfect Auror trainee with no attachment to anything beyond his mission.

He would have to move forwards, and do what he could.

**The End.**


End file.
